The Reserve Bank - Te Pūtea Matua - announced an extension of the regulatory guidance for the mortgage deferrals programme to help customers in need.
Since the original guidance was issued in March, many lenders have been supporting customers affected financially by COVID-19. The regulatory guidance means banks can continue to offer temporary mortgage deferrals to their customers, without those loans being viewed as being in default. The extension takes effect from when the existing guidance expires on 27 September and will apply until 31 March 2021, at which point the usual treatment will resume. Banks will still be able to offer deferrals to borrowers after this date, but they will not have the same concessionary regulatory treatment.
The Reserve Bank has published guidance on the implementation of regulatory capital calculation for the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme (BFGS) by banks operating the Standardised and Internal Ratings Based (IRB) approaches to credit risk, and implementation of the mortgage deferrals programme by banks.
The Reserve Bank is introducing a Term Lending Facility (TLF), a new longer-term funding scheme for the banking system, in support of the Government’s Business Finance Guarantee Scheme to help promote lending to businesses.